Kobe Bryant Injures Foot, Misses Friday And Saturday Practice

By Joshua Casey

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE

The last thing any NBA team wants heading into the start of the regular season is an injury, but that is just what the Los Angeles Lakers got this past week during practice. To add insult to injury the affected player is none other than superstar Kobe Bryant, an obvious center piece for the teams play moving forward.

Early Friday morning, as the Lakers took the court for practice, Bryant was not on the court, rather he was having his foot evaluated and having medical staff determine his availability for the evening practice. It was expected that Kobe would be ready for the evening practice, but after further evaluation was urged to sit out, which he did.

The Lakers have already been labeled as a championship contender, but the one knock has been their ability to stay injury free. Seeing as how their roster consists of many players who have had injury problems in the past, or are getting up their in age, the Lakers can ill afford to have players getting injured. Although the Lakers have more depth at key positions than they did last season, no team in the NBA can overcome the loss of three to four starters.

The Lakers held practice this morning at their training camp facility in El Segundo before they get ready to travel to Fresno, California for their preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday. While many people around the Lakers, including Kobe himself, had hope that Kobe would be available to practice on Saturday, he was just recently, (about 2 hours ago), spotted leaving the Lakers practice facility in his Ferrari 458.

On the opposite end of the injury spectrum the Lakers continue to receive good news regarding Dwight Howard’s back injury. There have been no setbacks the for the superstar big man, and he has taken part in nearly every part of the Lakers practices. At first it looked as if Howard would not be ready for the Lakers season opener October 31st against the Dallas Mavericks, now the talk from Howard is that he would like to be ready for a few preseason games. Barring any setbacks Howard should be 100% come October 31st.